


I’ve Waited So Long For This

by pencilguin



Series: Fictober 2018 [23]
Category: Star Trek: Discovery
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-26
Updated: 2018-11-26
Packaged: 2019-08-29 23:57:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16753933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pencilguin/pseuds/pencilguin
Summary: [Spoilers for season 1] A slow morning after Hugh's return.





	I’ve Waited So Long For This

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally posted on Tumblr as part of the Fictober 2018 challenge. Unbeta'd; I apologize for any mistakes that might still be in there. 
> 
> I'm going to continue ignoring the cast and creators' hints that Hugh's return will have to deal with trauma and healing process for as long as I can. In the meantime, have some fluff.

The mushrooms have

returned my boyfriend.

_— Six-word story_

 

 

*** 

 

 

Slowly, Paul awoke from a deep sleep. His head was still a little dizzy and he squinted to make out anything in the dark room. Something was different from before, though it took him a while to figure it out. For some reason he was feeling more at peace than he had in months. The room was the tiniest bit warmer. The silence was just a little less pressing and quiet. It took his brain a while to sort out the clues that his sleepy senses were providing almost one-by-one. When it registered the weight resting on his chest, something finally clicked.

_Hugh._

Hugh had wrapped his arm around Paul’s chest.

Hugh was here.

Hugh was _back_.

Paul closed his eyes for a couple of seconds, took a few deep breaths while his heartbeat was doing happy somersaults as he let the fact sink in.

Hugh was alive. Right now that was the only thing in the universe that mattered.

He opened his eyes again and sought for Hugh’s form next to him in the dark. Straining his ears, he could hear his quiet, steady breathing. Carefully, he turned around a little so he could look at Hugh properly, then rested a hand on his arm, just to feel that Hugh was truly there, and that he was real.

Hugh had come back to him. He kept repeating the thought inside his head, enjoyed the happiness bubbling inside him at that which his heart couldn’t contain.

It was still almost too dark to see anything, but Paul found that he was still so intimately familiar with Hugh’s features that he could make out his face easily. So he just stayed like this for some time, while the artificial lighting in the room slowly increased in a simulation of dawn and the sun rising and started to reveal more and more details with time.

Paul kept thinking. The months of grief, of mourning, of hurting and despair and, at times, cursing the fact that they had ever met at all (because that also would have meant that Hugh wouldn’t have to die)—all of it felt distant now; dulled memories that had left scars that no longer hurt.

Instead, his thoughts wandered to the future now, and whatever doubts he might have had in the past, Paul no longer had any interest in picturing a future without Hugh.

After a while, with the lights now bright enough that the shadows they cast no longer obscured completely, Hugh stirred. He scrunched up his face and slowly squinted his eyes open.

“Hey,” Paul whispered, and Hugh’s eyes found his. “Good morning, love.”

Hugh smiled at him, soft and warm and full of love, and it was the most beautiful thing in the world.

“Good morning to you, too, mushroom.”

Paul took his hand, intertwined their fingers. Pressed a kiss to the back of Hugh’s hand.

“You’re back. You’re finally back,” he muttered.

Hugh said nothing, only pulled himself up and leaned over to kiss him. Paul wanted to cry tears of joy because this was just like he had remembered, only better because it was _now_ ; because it was _real_.

“I’ve waited so long for this,” he said after they at last had to break apart to catch their breath. “I’m still processing the fact that this is really happening right now.”

“I’m sorry I kept you waiting,” Hugh muttered, his hand still clinging to Paul’s.

“Don’t apologize. You’re here now. That’s more than enough. I … I missed you so much, all these months.”

“I missed you, too, love.”

Paul drank in every kiss and every touch, like gasping for air after months apart, wishing the moment to never end.

“Hugh,” he said, snuggled up to him as the light reached its full morning brightness.

“Mhm?”

“I don’t wanna get out of bed.”

“Well, you’re lucky then,” Hugh responded with a wide grin. “Because I’m pretty sure I remember the captain telling you yesterday that you can take the day off.”

Paul’s face lit up.

“Right! Did I mention I love you?”

“Only fifty-two times since I came back, which isn’t nearly enough if you ask me.”

Paul responded by playfully poking and then kissing his side.

“And even if he hadn’t said it,” Hugh added with a wink, “I could just give you a sick note. Doctor’s orders.”

“You’re not cleared for duty yet, though, Doctor.”

“Doesn’t matter. I’ll find a way.”

For another while, they just remained like this in silence, heartbeats in sync, and Paul’s thoughts kept gravitating around this moment of bliss and peace and their present and their future and the rest of their eternity.

“Hugh?” he said again.

“Yes?”

“I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this, and thinking about the best way of saying it, but … I’m not good at putting my feelings in fancy words, and you know that, so …” Hugh just listened silently and patiently to his rambling. As always. Like the perfect human being he was. “I don’t ever want to live without you again. If … if that’s what you want, too.”

He held his breath as Hugh turned his head to look at him. Finally, he responded with the most radiant smile Paul had ever seen.

“I do.”


End file.
